caerula's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanksgiving, or, Something besides quizzes, for a change Wow, I'm depressed today. I'm not sure why, other than it's my first full day back to work. I'm all-over achy, but that's pretty much par for the course, and doesn't normally bother me this much. I didn't get enough sleep last night, but again, that's not out of the ordinary. It was a long, but basically good holiday weekend, and I really have nothing to be down about. I can't find my Christmas cds. After watching the new Muppet Christmas movie this weekend with Natalie, and part of a really bad John Denver movie, I need my JD & the Muppets Christmas fix. And it is nowhere to be found, wahh. The cast came off on Wednesday. Such a relief. I have to wear an air-cast for six weeks or so, but it's something I can take off. Spent over an hour in the bathtub Wednesday eve scrubbing and shaving and moisturizing. My leg is again a thing of beauty. Except for the bigass scar, of course. Discovered that a hairy scaly leg is a powerful bargaining tool; Blue was sufficiently eeked by its appearance that I have no doubt he would have promised me anything to shave and exfoliate. TMI, I know. But it was an empty threat; I couldn't leave it like that in any case. Blue was in a horrid mood early last week; Tuesday and early Wednesday he was insane with crabbiness. Part of the problem was that he'd run out of his medication and hadn't called to get a refill. Which was of course his own fault, but that didn't stop him crabbing at me about it. He was a little better by Wednesday afternoon, when he took me to the doctor's office and we then picked YMB up from school � half-day � and took him to lunch (Big Boys, nothing fancy, which was YMB's choice), since he was gone for Thanksgiving weekend. He flared up again at the traffic on the way home, but has been basically okay since, so I'm not sure what the problem was. Just a couple of really bad days, I suppose. One of YMB's plethora of aunts picked him up for his Thanksgiving weekend with the Dementors late Wednesday afternoon, and we were at loose ends after that. Blue had Wednesday and Thursday night off for the holiday, and we almost didn't know what to do with ourselves. Well, except for *that*, which will not be gone into here, sorry. First half of Thanksgiving was at my parents, with both sisters and brothers-in-law, Auntie, Grandma, other Gramma, the less-crazy aunt on that side of the family (mom's youngest sister), and the Crazy Mormon Cousins, who had sort of finagled themselves into an invitation. Long story. Future Serial Killer, son of the less-crazy sister, had stayed home with the more-crazy sister, because he couldn't be bothered to stop playing his video games. He wasn't exactly missed, but geez. He's 15. He ought to be made aware that family is more important. Of course, this is the child whose mom just bought him a high-definition tv because "it's better for his games." No wonder his priorities are screwed up. As for Crazy Aunt Hypo, she just couldn't be bothered to get out of bed, apparently. The two aunts who live together in that house with my poor gramma are not speaking to each other. Must be so pleasant at mealtimes there. Anyway, everyone was fairly well behaved at dinner. The Diva's only fit was that she didn't want to sit on a barstool at the counter to eat, which is where she and Bubbles had been delegated to as the only underaged present. Amazingly, her mother Tee didn't give in and try to make a place for her at the table, and Diva ended up eating alone in the family room, seated on the floor, moping. Hah. Tee did co-opt sister Kitty, which was completely unfair, as Kitty and CF could only stay for a few hours and most of us hadn't seen her since Mom's birthday in August when she announced the pregnancy. Apparently didn't occur to her that say, Kitty's parents might like to spend some time with their pregnant daughter. Kitty is getting awfully cute and pregnant. She's at around 18 weeks, I think, and just has this little bulge of a belly. Definitely looking pregnant. She insists she's starting to feel the baby poking at her; not having any knowledge of these things, I don't know if she can at this point or not. But at one point she put my hand on her tummy and said "See � that's a foot or something," I only felt a funky hard spot, but it was definitely something there. Nifty. And so weird. They go for her ultrasound in two weeks, and not surprisingly, have decided to find out the sex. CF really wanted to know, and Kitty kept waffling and couldn't decide if she did or not, so she ended up caving. She says she *might* tell us at Christmas. Right, like she's so good at keeping secrets. So I'm sure we'll know nearly as soon as she does. Makes it easier for those of us making baby gifts, at least. Dinner was lovely at my parents, as usual. I took it on faith that the turkey was excellent, since I don't eat meat, and Tee burned the homemade rolls that my sister Kitty had slaved over, but other than that all was well. Very much like I remember dinner at Gramma's used to be, when we had holidays there before Grandpa died. Very Southern-influenced � green beans cooked all day, with onion and bacon; yams, piles of wonderfully fluffy mashed potatoes, banana pudding (which is a side dish, not a dessert, at least at our dinners), sweet corn, homemade cranberry sauce *and* the kind still shaped like the can, and two kinds of jello salad. Whew. And pink lemonade or "sweet" iced tea to drink, both tradition holiday beverages for some reason. It was really nice. And I can't even tell you how much I love those green beans. Yum. Later in the afternoon we proceeded to Blue's cousin's for seconds. It was equally crazy there, and actually noisier, since the guests included eleven adults, two teenagers, and five kids � two six-years olds, a fiver, one at four and one at two. All boys except for the oldest. Gah. Had dessert there (lemon pie provided by yours truly, along with pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and assorted other goodies) and watch the kids run around insanely, and watched my husband run around with them just as insanely. Definitely cheered him up to see all the kids, since we didn't have YMB with us this year. I really, really like my in-laws, for the most part. MIL is a bit dim, and keeps insisting on buying me make-up and perfume and jewelry as gifts, despite the fact that I don't do any of those things, but is essentially good-natured, generous, and a real sweetheart. FIL can be tough and annoying and sexist, but I've learned to let his comments roll off me, and for the most part is entertaining and hard-working and nice. Blue's two older cousins � double cousins, since they are related on both sides of the family (MIL's sister married FIL's brother) are really great and welcomed me into the family, which I had been a little nervous about since Blue is like their little brother. They both have great kids, one with three little boys, the other with two teenagers from her first marriage and two younger kids from the current one, The kids are a little wild, but not spoiled or Diva-ish at all. Both of their husbands are the type to spend the holidays watching football in the basement or messing about on the computer, also in the basement, but both seem fairly normal and well-adjusted. Blue's uncle, unlike his brother FIL, is very quiet and reserved, and even after several years I don't have much of a feel for him. His wife Aunt Mary, MIL's sister, is decidedly odd � very into whatever the latest health trend is, always recommending some sort of diet or vitamins or whatever, and rather pushy. She startled me at my wedding by coming up to me at the reception and demanding to know what my blood type is. Being my wedding reception, I could hardly remember my own name, never mind my blood type, and I brushed her off; she's been a bit standoffish toward me since then. She seems to sense that I think her health fads are crap. But she's fairly well-intentioned even so, and like FIL, I can usually ignore the more pointed comments. There's another aunt who comes to family gatherings, MIL's and Aunt Mary's younger sister, and I don't know her very well. She apparently has some really fucked-up grown up kids, but I'm sort of vague on the details, and I like it that way. In any case, these people welcomed me into the family with open arms three years ago, and I've mostly come to love them. I adore the kids, for the most part, and get along particularly well with the youngest girl, who, at six-almost-seven, loves to tell me about her Barbies and her horses and her riding lessons. The boys adore Blue, as he will roughhouse with them on the floor to the point of falling-down exhaustion. And we see them just often enough, but not too often. I realize I am very lucky in both my family and my inlaws. Some nuts, some annoyances, but no alcoholics or abusers or pervs � not anymore, at least. I appreciate it, believe me. Friday we did absolutely nothing. Lounged around, ate leftover, watched tv, napped, and it was beautiful. Saturday spent the day with Natalieeee, and we watched more bad tv, cross-stitched, talked incessantly (Blue pretended not to hear us, I think, for the most part), snarked at Scott Hamilton and the evil Tara Lipinski in the oh-so-competitive Ice Wars on tv, and went to bed fairly early. Took Natalie to the airport at the incredibly evil hour of 5:30 am yesterday, which apparently was completely pointless since the poor thing was stuck in the Detroit airport for hours anyway � it never fails � came home, slept for another hour or so, went to church, met much of the family afterwards for Gramma's 76th birthday dinner � at a really nice restaurant, but fortunately Dad was nice enough to pay for my dinner, thank goodness, or else I would have been having salad and water � then accompanied Mom to Target, where I did find a couple of YMB's presents on sale. And some nifty ornament hooks, green plastic snap thingies with no sharp points to poke fingers and get lost in the carpet to be found by the unwary foot sometime in April. Came home and dug out some of the Christmas stuff, although not as much as I was intending, and then crashed with the Sunday paper until Blue got home with YMB in tow. And so here we are. It was a good weekend. And you know, I'm not nearly as bummed as I was when I started writing this. 2:19 p.m. - December 02, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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